Republicans are all about lower taxes and less government, right? They want less bureaucracy, less government spending, less regulation, less, less, less! Why then, after years of GOP controlled congress and two Bushes and Reagan, did the government keep growing? Why does the bloated behemoth that is our federal Government keep swelling like a tumor, even with Tea Baggers taking control? The following provides a pretty good guess.
Say hello to Wyoming congressional candidate Cody Kane. (Not a real person) Kane, 41 is a former rodeo star turned businessman. He is married to former beauty queen and one time TV weather lady Candy Burgess Kane. They have three lovely children Cayley Kane 9, Carly Kane 6 and little Cody Jr., 3. Though a first time candidate, Kane's rugged good looks (think Tom Selleck meets Dick Gephardt) and no-nonsense Christian conservative "family values" have made him a Tea Bag favorite. So, with a shoestring budget and a lot of hard work, Kane and his ever smiling wife, pulled off an upset and beat the incumbent, the long serving Rex Winchester.
During his acceptance speech, at the Cheyenne Doubletree, Kane told his rapt followers that -- if he had anything to say about it -- there would be no new taxes, government spending would come down and getting an abortion would get a whole lot harder. He also tossed a couple of jabs at President Obama for his Kenyan, socialist ways, and he made a joke about Nancy Pelosi being "reverse Viagra." All in all, a big win for the Tea baggers. A promising, energetic young man was going to Washington to set some things right.
So Cody, Candy and the kids, along with their dog "Blue," find a house in Arlington and Cody gets to work. The first thing that strikes Cody about Washington is how much government there is. It seems to go on forever. All these Government buildings all over the place. Everywhere, it seems, interstates exits for things like "Quantico" and "The Pentagon." And all these people with plastic name tags around their necks, working all these government jobs. It seems that for every Senator or Congressman or General there about ten thousand office workers. No wonder the government has gotten out of control, Cody thinks, we don't need a tenth of this.
The second thing that strikes Cody about his new life is how many people are calling him wanting jobs. Friends, family, people who worked on his campaign, in-laws, friends of in-laws, friends of people he knew from grade school. And most of these people are conservative Republicans just like Cody, but they want jobs. And not just any job, they want good jobs for good pay, and they expect to get them. After all, many of these people got Cody elected.
So Cody made lots of calls and got people jobs. First he got his wife's sister a job at the Commerce Department, (the fact that her only previous employment was as a nail technician did not faze the folks at Commerce) then he got his nephew a job in his congressional office, then he got his marginally alcoholic uncle Frank a job with the DEA, then it all got kind of blurry, but suffice to say he got jobs for more people than he could count.
Cody Kane, a man who had swept into Washington promising to make government smaller and spend less, had just made government bigger by several hundred jobs in his first six months in office. And all the other Senators and Congressmen were doing exactly the same thing. Left, Right and center. It did not take a genius to realize that at the rate the government was growing "Less government" was not going to happen any time soon. And he realized that creating "less government" and creating "more jobs," was an oxymoron. At least in his current circumstances. But he still talks about "less government" in his speeches. And the crowds still go wild.